Brad Warner's Blog, page 10

Mountain of Drugs

I recently got into a fairly ridiculous debate on Facebook with some people who think that psychedelic drugs can get you to the same place as meditation. I don't really know why I bothered. Except that people who advocate this position are so passionate about it and it's really easy to pull their chains. It makes them crazy when someone with meditation experience disagrees. It's like when you bother a fire ant mound.

During the discussion, one of the supporters of drug abuse as a way to gain spiritual insight started in with the time worn cliché that drugs are like taking a helicopter to the top of a mountain rather than climbing it. You get the same breathtaking view as someone who has climbed the mountain. But you get there much quicker and more easily. "You can't deny it's exactly the same view," one guy said. But, in fact, I would unequivocally deny that it's the same view. It's not. Not at all.

Metaphors always fall apart if you press them too much. But I like this one because it shows exactly what the problem is when you start saying drugs will do for you the same thing as meditation but faster and without all the muss and fuss.

Let's say you met a veteran mountaineer with over a quarter century of climbing experience, a person who has written books on mountain climbing and routinely personally instructs others in the art of climbing. And let's imagine what would happen if you tried to convince this guy that people who take helicopters to the tops of mountains get everything that mountain climbers get and get it a whole lot easier.

The mountain climber would certainly tell you that the breathtaking view a guy who takes a helicopter to the top of a mountain gets is not in any way, shape or form the same view that a person who climbs the mountain herself gets.

To the mountain climber, the guy in the helicopter is just a hyperactive thrill seeker who wants nothing more than to experience a pretty view without putting any effort into it. The helicopter guy thinks the goal of mountain climbing is to be on top of the mountain and that climbing is an inefficient way to accomplish this goal. He just doesn't get it. At all.

The helicopter guy misses out on the amazing sights there are to see on the way up. He doesn't know the thrill of mastering the mountain through his own efforts. He doesn't know the hardships and dangers involved in making the climb. And he'll never know the awesome wonder of descending the mountain back into familiar territory. All he's done is given some money to a person who owns a helicopter. He probably couldn't even find the mountain himself, let alone make it to the top. When there are no helicopters around, the poor guy is helplessly grounded.

If the helicopter guy claims that he has reached the same place as the mountain climber, the mountain climber knows in ways the helicopter guy can't even fathom that the helicopter guy is a fool.

To a mountain climber, the goal of mountain climbing is not the moment of sitting on top enjoying the view. That's just one small part of the experience. It may not even be the best part. To a mountain climber, every view, from every point on the mountain is significant and wonderful.

People who think that the pinnacle of the experience is that moment of being right on the tippy-top, don't understand the experience at all. The poor attention addled things probably never will.

What I am working on in meditation involves every single moment of life. So-called "peak experiences" can be fun. But they no more define what life is about that so-called "mundane experiences." When you start making such separations, you have already lost the most precious thing in life, the ability to fully immerse yourself in every experience.

No. Taking a helicopter to the top of a mountain is not at all the same thing as climbing it for yourself. To insist that it is proves that you don't understand the first thing about mountains.

My attitude about drug use and its relationship to spiritual experience has been characterized as intolerant and fundamentalist. One clever-trousers on Twitter said, "Brad Warner's shadows are bigger than Genpo Roshi's. The guy is so blind he probably shouldn't even have a driver's license." Whatever that's supposed to mean. But my attitude has no more to do with fundamentalism or conservativism than our fictional mountain climber's attitude about rich, hasty pleasure junkies who take joy rides in helicopters. It is unambiguously clear that drugs and meditation cannot take you to the same place simply by the very nature of the experiences. They are not even in the same league of things. The comparison between the two is entirely spurious and unworthy of examination.

People who say these things about drugs and meditation may have tried drugs but most have never really attempted much meditation. Oh maybe they've gone to a handful of yoga classes and done shavasana. Or maybe they've been to a Vipassana retreat or even rented a cabin at Tassajara one summer. But they don't have any real depth of experience with meditation to compare to their drug experiences.

I've run the mountain metaphor into the ground. So I'll stop here. I'll leave it to the people in the comments section to come up with unnecessary and wrong-headed further variations on the metaphor (like talking about the views you can get from helicopters that mountain climbers can't see or some such dumb ass thing -- metaphors can only be stretched so far before they become absurd).

But here is a brilliant song (probably) about drugs by Gene Clark:

The Psychedelic Experience

First, I got quoted by a Huffington Post writer about Kalachakra, a big feel-good "Buddhist" festival going on right now in Washington DC. Here's the article: http://tinyurl.com/3texsfo.

I just returned from spending four days at Starwood, a pagan festival held in the Wisteria campgrounds in Pomeroy, Ohio. They had wifi there, which surprised me. But I was there to present two workshops and also to gather some data of my own, so I didn't spend much time on the web.

This festival is held by a group called A.C.E., the Association for Consciousness Exploration. Near as I can tell from simply walking around, watching and listening (and not doing any in depth research at all), ACE appears to be a group of older hippie guys who did a lot of their exploration of consciousness back in the sixties and seventies through ingesting large amounts of psychedelic substances. Some seem to have moved on to other things. Some have given up the drugs as their main form of exploration and now just smoke a little weed to get mellow. Others are still pretty deeply committed to so-called "entheogens" as a means of accessing so-called "higher states of consciousness."

Anyone who has read my book Hardcore Zen or, indeed, spent much time reading this blog knows already that I am not a great champion of the use of drugs as a means of spiritual advancement. I don't feel bad about not being a convenient go-to guy for encouragement to pollute the body/mind with toxic substances in order to achieve great awakenings at a cheap price. There are already plenty of people out there who advocate that.

While I was at Starwood, I was getting mightily annoyed by all the people out there who were deluding themselves and others into believing that a cheap dose of acid, 'shrooms, peyote, "molly" or whatever was going to get them to a higher spiritual plane. So I logged on to facebook and I wrote:

Drug users annoy the fuck out of me. Losers.

This received 49 "like" votes and has so far gathered 96 comments, the most recent of which showed up just six hours ago even though the status update appeared around 36 hours ago (if my barely adequate math skills are correct). I have no reason to believe the comments have stopped completely yet.

This is how I felt at midnight after spending several hours around some really energetic, intelligent, creative and fun kids who were loading themselves to the gills on psychoactive substances. Many of these substances appear to have been provided by older folks in the community who believed they were helping these young folks explore the frontiers of human consciousness or some such thing. Again, this is just my "eyeball" observation and is not based on in-depth research into the source of the drugs they were using. It was certainly clear that some of the older folks were very much encouraging this behavior even if they were not directly contributing to it.

These young stoned kids were really nice people, by the way. They went out of their way to generously provide free food for anyone who showed up at their campsite. And their food was way better than the overpriced stuff down at the main cafe on site. So I ate a lot of it.

I found myself becoming extremely fond of these folks. They were definitely a lot more fun to hang around with than just about anyone else at Starwood. They seemed to be asking questions rather than trying to revisit their glory days or wallow in a sea of bad cliches and dull role-playing games.

And yet they were destroying the very things that made them like that by numbing themselves to the real world with dangerous drugs. Moreover the very people who should have known better and should have been guiding them away from that kind of behavior were, instead, encouraging it.

I am not a fan of drugs. Never will be. And that makes some people really mad. I'm guessing these people feel like if they could convert me to their way of thinking it would be a double delicious coup. Getting someone like me to say drugs were The Way would count way more than getting Terrance McKenna to say it for the 30,000th time. But it's not going to happen.

At the same time, I am a huge, huge fan of much of the drug-influenced art, music and writing of the sixties and seventies. While I was at that campsite I sat and read most of the book The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (aka Baba Ram Dass, later of Be Here Now fame). It's a book about the authors' deeply mistaken reading of the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a guide for the drug taking experience. It is also the inspiration for The Beatles marvelous song Tomorrow Never Knows.

It's a pretty cool book. I even went on-line and ordered a copy for myself. The fact that it's dead wrong doesn't make it any less cool. But, folks, that book is as old as I am. We're both copyrighted the same year! The brave new world Leary and Alpert envisioned would come about in the 21st century (aka now) when everybody tuned in, turned on and dropped out never happened.

Drugs did not make everybody become beautiful and loving and spiritual aware. Instead they led to death and crime and waste. Lots of my friends were bright young consciousness explorers when they were the age these kids I hung out with are now. Some cleaned up, some became waste cases, a few are dead.

It was one thing to believe in 1964 that a brave new tripped out age was about to dawn. It's quite another to still believe that now, having seen what the last 47 years have shown us about where that path leads.

If you want some examples, how about Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious, Syd Barrett, John Entwistle, Kurt Cobain... Do I really need to get so cliched with this? Come on now.

A number of people on my Facebook page took me to task for what they saw as a violation of "Right Speech." Listen. Right Speech isn't about being meek and mild and only telling people what they want to hear. Right Speech is saying what needs saying when it needs saying. Any speech that supports the use of drugs as a means to really get to know yourself is bullshit. Speech that softens the real hit some people need to get that message is useless.

You can comment all you want, but you won't change my mind about drugs. You will always and forever be wrong if you try to equate true spirituality with frying your brain on chemicals (even if they grow inside cacti and fungi). Put it this way, if you want me to say drugs are cool, you're gonna lose. And what would that make you?

The Difference Between Zen and Therapy?

I present to you the very first published photo of all four original members of Zero Defex together for the first time since nineteen hundred and (mumbles indistinctly)! Left to right are Mickey X-Nelson, Brad No Sweat, Jimi Imij and Tommy Strange.

Purists may ask where are Johnny Phlegm, Frank N. File and Alan X-Nelson. But the band's first three bass players each lasted a mere couple of weeks, while I was in for the long haul right up till the end. Or at least the first end of the band. So go suck a grape.

This was taken at X-Day 14 down in Southern Ohio where we played last night. I am heading back down to the same campgrounds later today. Tomorrow and Thursday I will lead workshops at Starwood, a big pagan festival down there in the woods at Wisteria campgrounds. I'm pretty sure you can still get a spot there. Click here for details. Cuz I don't really know. The workshops are at 10 am both days.

On the way driving back up to Akron a friend who was riding with me asked that perennial question, "What's the difference between a Zen teacher and a therapist?"

This has come up a number of times since I spoke at Ordinary Mind Zendo in New York where, some (but not me) say I was psychoanalyzed on stage. I've answered in a few really complicated ways. But there in the car I came up with the real answer spontaneously.

A Zen teacher teaches Zen.

The relationship between a Zen teacher and his/her "student" is based on their mutual practice of zazen. If you're not practicing zazen... well, you can ask a Zen teacher whatever you want and either place value on her answers or disregard them. But you won't really understand her answers until you start practicing yourself.

My friend asked if I give people advice about how to live, as a therapist does. I thought hard about the many private interviews I've had with practitioners and I couldn't come up with a single instance where I advised anyone about how to live. Nor can I recall ever being advised how to live by my teachers or any other Zen teacher I've done an interview with. In fact they've all avoided giving such advice even when I clearly and unambiguously asked for it.

I talk to people about their Zen practice, about the things that come up during practice, about how to respond and deal with this stuff. In my case I usually respond by explaining how I've dealt with my practice issues. I don't ever tell people to do it my way because my way is not right for them.

So there you go. The difference between Zen and therapy is Zen.

Starwood, X-Day

First a couple announcement/corrections.

July 3, 2011 (Sunday) at 11-something p.m. ZERO DEFEX will play at X-Day 14 at the Wisteria Campground near Athens, Ohio

July 6 & 7, 2011 (Wed & Thu) I will be speaking and leading workshops at Starwood, also at the Wisteria Campground

I believe these are both listed wrong on my Book Tour Page. Unfortunately the files with which I created that page are now lost. So I'll have to recreate the entire page from scratch to correct anything on it. I'll get to that...

Both of these events are far out of the range of the kinds of events either I or the band usually do. We're not really hippie-in-the-woods kind of people. So I'm a little nervous as to how they'll turn out. Does a bear poop in the woods? Yes. But I do not usually poop in the woods.

Apparently people often go to these things "sky clad." I will not be sky clad. I'm not sure how much I want to see sky clad hippies with beer guts boppin' around at the drum circle. But I guess I'm gonna see a lot of that.

X-Day (but not Starwood) is a festival run by the Church of the Subgenius. The Church of the Subgenius is a brilliant parody of cults and organized religions that is always tottering on the edge of becoming either a cult or an organized religion itself. Each year the leader of the church predicts that aliens will descend in a fleet of UFOs to pick up the members of the church and blast everyone else in the world to smithereens. Each year the members meet to await the saucers. Each year the saucers fail to arrive. And each year the leader of the church makes a new excuse as to why it didn't happen this year and promises that next year the aliens will come for sure.

I'm a great believer in robbing bad things of their power by making fun of them. So I'm all for the Church of the Subgenius. For all their lunacy, some of the philosophy in their books is pretty deep. And some is just goofball nonsense.

Last night Zero Defex played at Thursday's Lounge in Akron. In attendance was our original guitarist Tommy Strange. He said we played too fast.

The truth is a lie!!!

WHY I MATTER

Two articles about me have come to my attention recently. They are:

Why Brad Warner Matters

and

Brad Warner Vs. The Maha Teachers

It's weird to read about yourself. You quickly realize that the "Brad Warner" people write about is not the same guy who does my laundry, stands in line at the DMV for my plates, and eats alone with me at a Taco Bell somewhere off Interstate 35. The "Brad Warner" they write about is some kind of abstraction created by the writers themselves. I have only minimal control over this "Brad Warner."

The fact that I have such little control over "Brad Warner" is the cause of a lot of grief for this Brad Warner. People are constantly nagging me to make that "Brad Warner" more like they think he ought to be. But I can't even make that "Brad Warner" more like what I think he ought to be! I've even seen photos of Noah Levine labeled as "Brad Warner," to give you an idea how little control I have over that "Brad Warner" guy.* Grrr...

Take the those weirdos who chose to write obscene emails to Barry Magid after they read the post I put up a few weeks back. Please! I still don't understand why anyone would do that. It makes no sense at all. Were they trying to be like me? If so, they weren't being like me at all. But possibly they were acting like the "Brad Warner" they had created for themselves. Or, quite possibly, they were people who don't like what I do, who chose to pose as my fans to try and make me look bad. God only knows. I certainly do not.

People constantly demand that I take responsibility for this stuff. But I really can't. It's like saying The Beatles shouldn't have made the White Album because it inspired Charles Manson to kill Sharon Tate. You cannot control the bizarre ways people take what you do. You have a responsibility to present yourself honestly. After that, there's not much else you can do. I'm sorry. There really just is not. I've tried.

In any case, about these new articles. Why Brad Warner Matters is the view of one person schooled in Tibetan Buddhism as to why the "Brad Warner" he has invented for himself matters. It's nice to read what he says. But at the same time, slightly embarrassing to read the quotes he pulls from my books. They're all real quotes. But they certainly aren't the ones I would pull out myself to express what I feel are the core things I wanted to get across in those books. Interesting.

My favorite part of this article is the final line, "I invite you to be like yourself."

The other article, Brad Warner Vs. The Maha Teachers, is about the recent piece I put up regarding the Garrison Institute's Maha Teacher Council.

The most interesting part of this article is not in the article itself but in one of the links it presents to another article by the same writer. This other article is called "Nice" Buddhism. It puts forth the idea that what is being called "Buddhism" in mainstream America these days isn't really Buddhism at all. It's a Buddhist-influenced form of progressive Christianity.

I have long believed this was true. My teacher, Nishijima Roshi, noticed it even more keenly than I did. He used to often lament that what certain Buddhist teachers propagate is not Buddhism at all but a kind of Christianity.

The author likens contemporary American Buddhism to post-hippie politically correct "nice" Christianity. This "Buddhism" ignores the difficult parts of Buddhism and shoehorns the rest into the accepted norms of polite, feel-good Christianity -- but without all that messy Jesus stuff either. So it's neither good Buddhism nor good Christianity, but something that's not quite either one, and above all absolutely inoffensive.

Both of these articles cite my book Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate. The "Brad Warner" people invent as a result of reading that book causes lots of trouble for me. But I think it was really a necessary book.

A couple of points the guy who wrote about "Brad Warner" in Brad Warner Vs The Maha Teachers need qualifying.

He writes, "He has no organization, so he can't be dismissed as a cult leader." I do have some kind of organization. But it's so disorganized it hardly qualifies. It's true I don't currently have anyone working with me. I read all my own emails, I write all the replies myself, I book all my own speaking events, I don't have a temple of any kind, etc. But some folks out in California are working on setting up a non-profit religious corporation (or whatever you call it) with me as the leader. So maybe I'll develop that into a cult one of these days. (cue laugh track)

He also writes, "He does not charge for teaching, so he can't be dismissed as a spiritual entrepreneur." This is a tricky point. I do very happily charge for speaking events. That's a perfectly legitimate way for an author to earn a living. I also accept dana (donations) when I speak at Zen centers and lead retreats. I really couldn't do these talks and lead these retreats any other way.

I try to leave monetary considerations out of actual Buddhist teaching as much as possible. That's not because I am so pure and holy. It's because I think that once money gets involved it changes things so radically that Buddhist teaching can't happen. I almost feel like if I could charge money for teaching and still teach I'd probably do it. It's fucking hard work.

Someone asked recently what the difference between Buddhist teaching and therapy is. I said some stuff about the way therapists try to make a person fit in with society, while Buddhists see the value of being able to deal with society. But we question its core values and don't really try to make people fit society's warped mold, only deal with it.

But really, the biggest difference between therapy and Buddhist teaching is that therapists charge for their work. And they should. I wouldn't do that job for free! But this creates certain expectations. When you pay for a service you have a right to demand results. If people start feeling they have the right to demand results from Buddhist teachers, Buddhist teachers can't do their work.

Yet Buddhist teachers have bills to pay just like everyone else. It's hard to figure out where to draw the line. I have not succeeded in finding that just perfect spot to make the division between what I do as a writer/lecturer and what I do as a Buddhist teacher yet. I probably never will. And so the question of whether or not I "charge for teaching" is and will probably always be arguable. Ah well.

Anyway, nice articles.


*The photo of Heaven's Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite on the top of this article is one of several oddities that came up on a Google image search of "Brad Warner."

Talk At Ordinary Mind Zendo

It's my mom's birthday. So here's a photo of her and me in Nairobi, Kenya on some Christmas in the 70s. Happy Birthday mom, wherever you are!

And before you go making up your own versions of what transpired last Saturday at Ordinary Mind Zendo in New York, please have a listen to the recording of the talk.

For those who may not be seeing that link, here's the URL:

http://hardcorezen.libsyn.com/transfe...

It will also appear shortly on iTunes. Search for Hardcore Zen Podcast. The title will be something like "Transference, Transmission, Adolescence, Adulthood, Life and Death." Last I checked (11 AM EST 6/23/11) it wasn't up yet. But it'll be there soon enough.

By the way, I got a very nice email from Mr Magid explaining his side of what happened. I think I didn't quite grasp how people were feeling about Joko Beck's death. You'll hear that I faltered badly in my attempt at saying something about it at the beginning of the talk. Having botched this, I decided to change gears and go right into what I'd prepared. The talk had been advertised as being about my new book Sex, Sin And Zen. So that's the talk I gave.

In any case, as I said before, I enjoyed this talk. I thought it went really well. Honestly.

And Barry Magid said he got some obscene emails from people who saw this blog. STOP THAT SHIT. Seriously. That's not nice.

Being Grown Up & Europe Tour

First & most importantly: If you have communicated with me by email regarding my upcoming tour of Europe or any other upcoming talks (see this link for details) please write me again. I lost ALL of the emails regarding this tour (as well as hundreds of other emails) when my computer was being worked on at the Apple Store in Summit Mall, Akron, Ohio. Thanks!

Next up, I've been monitoring the comments left about my previous post. It's fascinating. Lots of people seem to believe the post was an effort to enact some kind of revenge upon Barry Magid and the Ordinary Mind Zendo.

In fact, I do not feel vengeful at all. I kind of enjoyed the talk in a perverse way. No. Scratch "kind of." I very much did enjoy it. It was fun. I'm not angry at all. I'm mostly just confused.

There were a few people who took the opportunity to trash talk Mr Magid and his group. Since I don't censor those who trash talk me (and there are always plenty) I don't censor those who trash talk anyone else. But please don't read my not censoring them as some kind of expression of support on my part. I do not censor anyone. I really don't know what to think of the whole thing. People are mysterious. Most people's actions make no sense to me. This talk was just another in a long list of things I've participated in that I couldn't understand.

I thought the email I published was interesting. The writer's opinions seem to match those of the two people from the film crew who are doing a documentary about me who were also there. These film crew people had never seen me speak anywhere before and had never read any of my books. They also suspected the event had been set up as a way for the Mr Magid to attack me in public.

At the time I didn't feel I was being attacked or set up. Not exactly. I felt like I was being challenged by the woman who raised the question about "transference." I felt that Mr Magid's question about my "acting like a perpetual adolescent and refusing to become an adult" was extraordinarily rude. It would have been rude coming from anyone. But it was especially so coming from the leader of the community who invited me to speak.

This did not make me angry, just confused. Why would someone behave that way? It was weird. I still don't know. I've written to Mr Magid. Maybe he'll tell me. Maybe he won't. Maybe even if he tells me I still won't understand. Who knows? And, really, who cares?

In any case, I would like to speak to the matter of "acting like a perpetual adolescent and refusing to become an adult." Some of this will be what I said last Saturday. Some will not.

This is actually something I've heard before. In fact, I hear it quite often. I have put some thought into the matter and have decided that I do not, in fact, act like a perpetual adolescent and refuse to become an adult.

Yet there are times I wonder if it's true. I wonder if I really have somehow failed to become an adult. But then I have to write a check to my insurance company, file my taxes, take out my trash, plan a speaking tour of Europe, deal with divorce-related matters, fix my car, etc., etc., etc. I left my parents' house when I was 18 years old and have been living on my own ever since. I have actually managed to become an adult quite nicely, thank you very much for your concern.

I think this relates to something that happened to me a few years ago when I first started teaching Zen. One of the older guys in Nishijima Roshi's group took me aside and said he thought I did not take Zen very seriously. He found my attitude too light-hearted for his liking. He said that, for him, Zen was "a matter of life and death."

At the time all I could do was sort of wimper in response. This was someone I respected, someone I thought of as a friend. His tone was extremely angry. It made me sad. It made me confused.

But then I thought, fuck you. Fuck you. This is not an angry "fuck you," by the way, for those of you unfamiliar with uses of this phrase other than to express anger. It is a way of expressing that what someone has said about you is entirely wrong.

I do take Zen very seriously. It is the most serious thing in my life. And my attitude is a manifestation of just how seriously I take it.

I realized during my teenage years that my life might get cut short very quickly by a really nasty disease that ran in my family. At that point it became urgent for me to find out what life was really about. I jumped into my Zen training with an almost desperate sense of urgency and seriousness.

I have one life and one life only. I refuse to waste it. I don't care if the way I choose to live does not measure up to the way you imagine I ought to live. I don't have the time to waste on caring about that kind of trivia.

To me, what Buddha was really looking for was a way to live a life that doesn't suck. Hedonism didn't work because hedonism sucked. It looked like fun, but it really wasn't. Austerity sucked too. It provided a kind of high, but that high didn't make him happy. Instead he found the Middle Way between the two.

Buddha was not looking for a way to make all of us clones of whoever comes along claiming to be the manifestation of "adulthood." He was not looking for a way to make us all "serious" in the conventional sense. He wasn't an authoritarian leader looking for obedient followers. He was looking for a way to help people live a life that did not suck.

Buddhism is about enjoying your life. The goal of zazen practice, if there is one, is to learn how to enjoy living as thoroughly as you can. This is what I am working on. Nothing else. I am working on having as much fun while I'm here as I possibly can without hurting anyone or impeding their ability to have fun.

This is why I sit and stare at walls every day. No other reason.

And that's my bottom line.

Someone Else's Impressions of My Talk at Ordinary Mind Zendo in New York Last Weekend

After my talk last weekend at Ordinary Mind Zendo in New York, I posted my status on Facebook as :"Weirdest. Zen talk. Ever." Lots of people asked what that meant. I was considering writing up my impressions of the event. But before I even got started I received an email from a guy who had been there. He attached an email he sent to some of his friends about the event. I asked if I could reproduce it on this blog. He said OK as long as I kept him anonymous.

So here it is, one anonymous person's impressions of my talk at Ordinary Mind Zendo on Saturday June 18, 2011. Take it away anonymous:



...totally by coincidence i went to 'ordinary mind zendo' (nyc branch of joko's teachings) on saturday to hear brad warner talk about his new book 'sex, sin and zen.' the zendo is actually an upper west side apartment, very beautifully polished and japanified with a lovely enclosed garden patio.

there had been a funeral service in the morning before i got there and there was a table out in the garden with a lovely photo of joko beck and flowers, incense, etc. with the surrounding garden it reminded me of one of those grottos with shrines to the virgin mary. i read joko's books long ago when they first came out but i couldn't remember anything about them. i know she's much loved--er--she was much loved. brad warner didn't have much to say about her except that he had imagined her to be much younger--as had i, but i see by the wiki that she was in her 40's before she started doing zen.

i don't think i've gone to see a 'spiritual teacher' in years and years (and i exempt the dalai lama as more of an international monument like the eiffel tower where i think 'i live in an era where instead of climbing the mountains into secret tibet i can just buy a ticket to the beacon theater'); but i do go to hear authors read and there's a lot i've liked about brad warner's cheezy books. i also like that he's very outspoken about the big mind fraud and when there was a huge furor about genpo's sex life, brad said the sex was no big deal, that genpo was charging rich people $50,000 for 'big mind' training was the real scandal.

brad is in his mid 40's but looks like he's in his 30's. he was wearing a black tee shirt with "shoplifting from american apparel" printed in white on the front. it turns out that's the name of a novel and he's acting in a movie being made from it.

i would say this was a case of the guy being exactly like the author--he's not real charismatic, he makes terrible puns and giggles at them, he's confessional to a fault; his views are clear and consistent. he lived in japan for 11 years and is Nishijima Roshi's chosen dharma heir--he's studied dogen and is steeped in the zen culture--but his affect is as if someone selected a guy out of a crowd at random and dubbed him a zen master. i suppose this could be seen as a cultivated act, but my impression is it's quite genuine. he read a little bit from the book and tried to engage the group in conversation.

i would like to live in that beautiful polished apartment, but my impressions of the group weren't so great. i arrived at 11:40, as told, for a noon talk. when i stepped in nobody said anything to me, i said hello to a few people and they ignored me. everyone was sitting on zafus chatting, and all the spaces were taken, so i finally just stood in one place. after about 10 minutes a nice guy introduced himself and showed me a place to sit, but soon after i sat down a woman came and said that was her place. brad apologized for missing the morning zazen. barry magrid (psychoanalyst and zen teacher who heads up the zendo) said, 'with that shirt we would have thrown you out. it's inappropriate for a funeral.' if he was joking, it didn't come across that way and nobody laughed.

brad did his reading and talked a little--his theme had to do with sex and authority and how the zen teacher's practice is to deny and undercut his own authority and the student's desire to have an authority (pretty standard zenspeak i'd say)--and then opened the floor for questions. a woman announced that she was a psychotherapist and reminded brad that barry magrid was also a psychotherapist (brad winced and said something about being very afraid). she started talking about--actually said, "we call it 'the tranference'"-- and how painful to her brad's 'glib tone' was because he wasn't taking seriously the transference relationship.

i think i mentioned to you recently the wittgenstein workbook question, 'does the fact that someone feels strongly about something make it more likely to be true?' i was sitting a couple of feet away from brad and i felt the attack vibrations: 'i'm in pain so you must be wrong' kind of force. she contrasted his attitude with her own, which was to take her work very seriously. brad said that he was basically trying to give an entertaining talk; that his zen teaching would take place one-on-one or in a small group where he knew people well. then the other psychotherapist--barry magrid--said, 'do you think that unresolved problems in your childhood might have something to do with your acting like a perpetual adolescent and refusing to become an adult?' so, i thought, the head of the zendo had said two things to his guest speaker and they were both public insults.

in zen circles brad warner is pretty famous and it seems to me that barry magrid would have known what he was getting. was the invitation to speak an opportunity for him to put brad down? that's what it seemed like to me. it would have been more honest to invite him to a debate. i felt that he was put on the defensive and was a little shaky because of it--but perhaps it's typical experience for him. there's endless talk in some zen places about how wild and iconoclastic zen is, but the tiniest departure from conservative behavior is greeted with gasps and condemnation.

someone asked brad 'why do you teach?' and after saying he didn't know a few times he basically boiled it down to that his teacher had asked him to (and sort of tricked him into it) and that he needed a job and thought he could maybe get by giving talks and writing books (he also has a punk band but i get the impression it's not a money-maker). this seemed pretty honest to me. i also feel like most (not all) of the problems about zen and authority and sex would be cleared up by eliminating the job of teacher. then meditation would be communicated like sewing or carpentry--but, of course, this is idealism on my part and, anyway, i'm sure there are institutes of sewing and carpentry where authority rages.

i can't resist the urge to pick up on one other thing he talked about briefly which is the organization of the "zen community." i wanted to draw the parallel to yoga. 30 years ago (or so) the American yogis started campaigning for certification. the Indian yogis weren't really into it. they had the long tradition of a teacher deciding when a student was ready to teach, and a sort of freewheeling mode without any central organization. iyengar, one of the biggest of the Indian teachers--said if person practiced ten postures they could teach ten postures. but there is no money in that, and the Americans kept pressuring their teachers, saying there had to be "standards." nowadays of course yoga is a completely bogus practice that has nothing to do with it's aims or origins, but everybody is certified. i hope brad will keep up his protest.

New York, Sex Sin & Zen Review, 1-2-5

Where I'll be this weekend:

• Dharma talk Sat. 6/18 at Noon (12pm) at Ordinary Mind Zendo 107 West 74th St between Columbus & Amsterdam Aves Apt. BR New York, NY 10023

• Reading on Sat. 6/18 at 8pm Melville House 145 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Nice review of my new book:

http://www.modern-dharma.net/2011/01/sex-sin-and-zen-book-review/

Cool video:



Link to the video if you can't see it: http://youtu.be/KZXkzao9KvA

Interview with Scott Edelstein that says stuff about my first Zen teacher:

http://sweepingzen.com/2011/04/21/sex-and-the-spiritual-teacher-an-interview-with-scott-edelstein/

I'm going off now to film more of Shoplifting From American Apparel....

NEW INTERVIEW & SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL STUFF

Here's a new interview with me on Reality Sandwich. It's at:

http://t.co/bGVxTGH

I don't think I actually said "look" that much.

Here's an article about the filming of Shoplifting From American Apparel in Youngstown. It's at:

http://www.wkbn.com/content/news/local/story/Film-Crew-Shoots-Movie-Scene-at-Boardman-PD/dxeurPWfNk63MFOGuOf9ZA.cspx

Here are some photos from the shooting:

Jam session with most of the cast and crew.

On the beach in Mentor, Ohio with (L-R) Noah Cicero, Me, Jordan Castro and Pirooz Kaleyah

Me in the helmet-mounted "Cassavetes Cam" trying to get a clandestine shot inside America Apparel itself. Watch the film to see what transpired.

The Shoplifting Band with me doing David Bowie/Mick Ronson "licking the lead guitarist as he solos" thing. Jordan Castro (actor/associate producer) on acoustic guitar, Zowie on rhythm guitar, Mark Parsia (producer/actor) on drums, Sonny Mishra (actor/composer) on lead guitar, me on bass

We are on our way to New York City in a few minutes for more shooting there. I think New York will be even more fun than Youngstown!

For more on the movie go to http://shikow.blogspot.com/

If you're in New York and want to hear me talk about Zen and stuff, come see me on Saturday:

Saturday June 18th at Noon at Ordinary Mind Zendo
107 West 74th Street
between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues
Apt. BR
New York, NY 10023
T 917-608-3348

(zazen starts at 10 am, talk comes after that)